by Sharon Rondeau
(May 7, 2023) — In an interview on “Fox & Friends” Sunday morning, 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he is approaching his campaign with a “deep understanding of the Constitution.”
His appearance at approximately 9:26 a.m. EDT from a campaign event in Michigan took place after the three co-hosts brought up a New York Times column which quoted a New Hampshire voter questioning if Ramaswamy were running solely to “help Trump” and ultimately obtain a position in Trump’s administration should he win in 2024.
The Times has not been neutral in its coverage of the millennial Republican candidate.
At the outset of the five-minute interview, Ramaswamy denied that to be his purpose, stating he is running to become the next president of the United States with a goal of uniting all Americans.
Moments later he stressed his professed understating of the Constitution by stating it to be “bone-deep.”
Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution states:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
After Ramaswamy declared himself a candidate in late February on the now-defunct “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a number of readers as well as this writer contacted him through his campaign website to ask if and when his parents, who immigrated from India prior to his birth, were naturalized U.S. citizens and if so, their date of naturalization. To our knowledge, none received a response.
While many Americans, legal scholars and Congress itself say the term “natural born Citizen” signifies “born in the United States” with no reference to the citizenship of a person’s parents, many others believe the term, which the Framers never defined, requires not only a presidential candidate to have been born in the United States, but also to parents who were U.S. citizens at the time of the birth to ensure the candidate’s sole allegiance to the nation.
At the time of the Constitution’s writing, none of the Framers qualified under that interpretation, which those advocating for the latter definition say prompted them to include the “grandfather clause” of “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”
Given that, several of the Founders were able to be elected president, George Washington, James Madison, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson being examples.
Ramaswamy appears to meet the 14-year residency requirement, and no doubt exists that he was born in Ohio in 1985.
Ramaswamy additionally told the co-hosts that Trump’s slogan, “America First,” “does not belong to Trump” nor to himself, but rather, “to the American people” to cheers from supporters who stood around him. Trump accomplished much, he said, under that banner, but he said he will “take it even further.”
He said he plans to “make family cool again,” referring to the “nuclear family” invoked by co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy in discussing the social “instability” he said exists in America today, exacerbated, he said, by children growing up without a father.
Hi Sharon,
I searched the google search pages for links to Vivek Ramaswamy’s parents , Vivek Ganapathy and Geetha Ramaswamy, and their citizenship status and found nothing. Wikipedia does mention their names, and all of the other articles which reference them do not mention if they naturalized before his birth in Ohio.
According to the 1795 Naturalization Act and continuous immigration and naturalization law since then, Vivek is a ‘citizen’ with dual citizenship if his parents did not naturalize as U. S. citizens before his birth.
If Mr. Ramaswamy was a “natural born Citizen” according to Article II, wouldn’t he want that specific point to be emphasized on the Wikipedia page and highlighted in ALL news articles about his candidacy to the presidency?
Article II Section 1 clause 5 requires, for eligibility to be president, 7 things as implied by John Jay when he underlined the word “born” in “natural born Citizen” in his July 25, 1787 note to his friend George Washington:
1. Only singular U. S. citizenship
2. Only be birth alone
3. Only on U. S. soil
4. Only to two U. S. citizens
5. Only married
6. Only to each other
7. Only before a child is born
Does anybody know if Vivek Rmaswamy’s Indian parents naturalized before his birth on U. S. soil. If they did not naturalize, then he is not eligible to be president and is in the same eligibility status as
_Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (Indian parents)
_South Carolina Gov./U. S. Ambassador Nikky Haley (Indian parents)
_Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (Cuban Parents)
_California Sen. Kamala Harris (Indian mother and Jamaican father).
Art
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy is said to have been born in Ohio, USA in August 9, 1985, per #1985106731.
The father of Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy is “Vadakanchery Ganapathy Ramaswamy” (a.k.a. “V. G. Ramaswamy”) and is said to have been born in May 1952.
The mother of Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy is “Geeta Balasubramanian Ramaswamy” and is said to have been born on September 4, 1959.
I believe you are 100% correct and that was likewise my very first question. There must be transparency in this matter! To be natural born, both parent must either be US citizens at the time of birth OR naturalized US citizens at the time of birth.
Ramaswamy Is an opportunist look at his back ground in Pharmaceuticals – it is suspect. People will fall for MAGA packaging just as many fell for the pepsi packaging of “fundamentally transform America” BS that barry spewed. Just say No to candidates like Ramaswamy who ignore the NBC clause & claim to know the Constitution- that right there tells you who he really is.
So he says if Putin had a child born here 35 years ago, the child would be eligible?
So say, either directly or by insinuation, everyone, including every judge, who doesn’t accept “born in the country to citizen parents of the country” as the definition of “natural born Citizen”. They are wrong.
“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, … do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, … Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, …”
Declaration of Independence, Second Continental Congress of the thirteen United States of America, July 4, 1776
That makes it clear as clear can be that by declaring themselves absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown the Founders thereby declared their sole allegiance to the United States of America. It is therefore illogical that they would want anyone without sole allegiance to the United States as the President/Commander In Chief of the United States.
A deep understanding of the constitution. Funny how the ones who state this are always the ones who are ineligible.
What I have found thus far tells me his parents didn’t naturalize until after he was born. I just don’t like this guy. There is something odd about him.